Ben, The subject of this email says it all. How do I handle a (so far) polite yet concerned email from a parent, concerning her child’s grade, who also alleges to be a Spanish teacher? She mentions that the student’s grade prevented him from honor roll and it concerns her. She says she would just […]
These letters by Bob Patrick and John Piazza in response to a professional situation Jeff Brickler has recently found himself in are directed to parents and administrators. They are for our use to use as we wish when we find ourselves attacked by such people. Thank you Bob and John! The first two letters are from Bob:
We have another situation and it involves our lightening rod for change, Jeff. Thank you Jeff for taking the voltage for us again. I think the Olympus based parents and administrators in your snotty parent community must be having fun with this, targeting you with those bolts of lightning. The only thing is that, unlike the gods,
Here is some quality reflection on Standards and Common Core from Laura Avila: Our school is unequivocally in the direction of Standards Based Grading (SBG). The powers that be, aware of the strong, vociferous opposition to such a change, are doing their best to “take” us there in a gradual, most-stealthy way possible. However, the
Elissa has something going in Costa Rica for the spring: Hello fellow bloggers! For a couple of years I’ve been dreaming about teaching a CI Spanish course for adults in Costa Rica and it is finally happening! I am really excited! I could use your help getting the word of the course out beyond my
Sabrina just sent this letter from Dr. Krashen to President Obama, published today on the listserve, and thank you Sabrina: A very short open letter to President Obama November 26, 2012 There is enormous frustration and dissatisfaction among professional educators about current educational policy. Many, especially those in the classroom and closest to the children, feel
I was communicating recently with Carol Gaab (President, TPRS Publishing, Inc.) about the idea of doing less reading in level 1 as per recent discussion here. My idea is to use as many of those precious 125 level one hours for nothing but listening, something Krashen didn’t disagree with when I asked him about it last
One of the great hells in life for teachers who use comprehension based methods is knowing that we are responsible for thematic units that are just boring. One of the worst of these is teaching classroom objects. How can we make that interesting? How can we fit them into a rockin’ story and have it not go
Bob Patrick sent this: I had a little something unexpected happen yesterday, and it looks like something I will want to repeat fairly often. It just gave me another way to get comprehensible Latin into the ears of my kids. I have a student teacher with me this year, and he is drinking deeply at
I saw the movie Here Comes the Boom with Kevin James and Henry Winkler this weekend. I recommend it. A 42 year old biology teacher (James) tries to save his music teacher colleague’s job by becoming a cage/mixed martial arts fighter to make up for a school budget crisis. I view the film as a metaphor. While strong
I’m not sure that parallel novels can even work. I have never been able to get a parallel novel past the first few chapters – it always encounters the same limitations as the Realm did – it sets up well mechanically but when action is needed it isn’t there. However, if parallel novels are difficult, just personalizing and comparing
In almost all my classes this year, I tried “Alma“ for Halloween – a short video I found thanks to Michele. Here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irbFBgI0jhM First, with VLC player, I made 12 snapshots and printed them on normal sheets of paper; these were to be shown on the blackboard. For the students I
